And Now We Frog

Please Note: photos deleted during computer meltdown!

This was the body and finished back of the Brenda Cardigan first thing this morning. I bound off the underarms, put the fronts on holders and finished the back section, complete with sloped shoulders, last night while watching a convoluted Daniel Craig movie (Layer Cake). Then I laid it out for a gentle blocking overnight.

When I pulled the pins out this morning, it occurred to me that the back section looked a little narrow for a cardigan that's supposed to be worn over other clothes. My shoulder-to-shoulder measurement is 16" and I had planned on 18" with ease for this sweater. So I pulled out my trusty metal rule (which is 16" wide) to confirm what I had already guessed; I bound off the wrong set of stitches for the underarms! That's what happens when you're paying more attention to the movie than the knitting. Drats! Double Drats!

In case you're trying to follow the pattern, I knitted 19" in pattern to the underarms. I ended the lower body on the RS of the last row of a chevron repeat (the row with 5 stitches between yo's). Then, on the purl row, I knitted to within 1" of the first of the "side seams" (imaginary though they are) and started a new ball of yarn. Then I bound off 2" worth of stitches (8 stitches based on my gauge; 1" for the front of the underarm and 1" for the back of the underarm) and knitted with the second ball across the back stitches to within 1" of the second "side seam". Started a third ball of yarn, bound off another 8 stitches, and knitted to the end. The two "ends", separated by the bound off stitches, become the fronts, and were moved to stitch holders. From there I proceeded to knit the back.

A few tips, now that I've frogged the back and moved the bound off stitches to the correct position:
- with 14 chevron repeats in the body, I wanted 6 for the back, 3 for each front, and one under each arm eventually bound off for armholes. The initial 8 stitch bind-off should be the center 8 stitches of the 4th and 11th repeat.
- on each of the next 3 RS rows, decrease one stitch at each edge for the armhole slope. This should leave a complete chevron repeat plus one stitch at each edge of the back. You want that one extra stitch as the pick up edge when the sleeves are sewn in so that the six chevron repeats remain whole.
- knit the back to an armhole depth of 9". Then slope the shoulder with short rows, leaving first 5 stitches, then another 5 stitches, and finally 4 more stitches unworked on each side. This will be one chevron repeat plus the extra stitch on each shoulder.

If you're knitting a size smaller or a size larger, the 8 stitch bind off will fall across the purl stitch between two chevrons. Once the bind off and the armhole slope decreases are complete, you want to have six knit stitches from a chevron repeat to the LEFT of the bind off and seven knit stitches to the RIGHT of the bind off. This will make it a lot easier to knit partial chevron patterns for the fronts and back.

I'm still dithering over the best way to knit the shawl collar. The screw up with having to reknit the back at least puts that off for another day.........